A product class that constructed its development through the web channel is now leaning in the direction of bodily shops.
The channel mixture of smartphone shipments within the final 4 to 5 quarters reveals that the smartphone manufacturers have realigned themselves in the direction of offline retail. It is a reversal of the state of affairs when smartphone OEMs ran unique online-only gross sales prior to now.
Information and insights from analysis companies monitoring the sector present that rising premiumisation narrative in India’s smartphone market helps develop the share of shipments to offline/bodily retail shops.
As per IDC (Worldwide Information Company), the share of offline channel in smartphone shipments grew to 58 per cent in Jan-March 2025 in comparison with 49.9 per cent in Jan-March 2024. Analysts on the agency attribute this to determination of manufacturers to go the omnichannel manner and broaden their footprints into smaller cities. The development can also be extra pronounced amongst premium gadgets, the place prospects need to expertise the machine earlier than investing, they add.
“For example, greater than 55 per cent iPhone shipments have been by way of on-line channel in Q1-2024, whereas now offline accounts for greater than 3/fifth of Apple shipments. Equally for Samsung, on-line channel used to account for 55 per cent shipments, whereas in Q12025, it’s all the way down to 42 per cent solely. Manufacturers like vivo or Oppo each have 80 per cent+ shipments pushed by way of offline channel now,” Upasana Joshi, Senior Analysis Supervisor, IDC India, mentioned.
Analysts at Canalys (now a part of Omdia) observe that on-line shipments at the moment are largely seasonal, peaking round offers season within the e-commerce world, whereas offline channels ship extra steady volumes all year long.
“Client habits are maturing and lots of nonetheless browse on-line however favor the boldness of an in-store expertise earlier than committing…Manufacturers, together with Xiaomi, realme, POCO, OnePlus and Motorola—initially online-centric—are leaning closely on offline enlargement to achieve new prospects and increase ASPs,” Sanyam Chaurasia, Prinicipal Analyst at Omdia, mentioned in a brand new analysis observe.
In accordance with Canalys, the offline common promoting costs (ASPs) are additionally rising sooner (from $196 in Q12022 to $303 in Q12025) when in comparison with on-line ASPs, suggesting that offline shoppers are more and more driving higher-value gross sales drawn by the in-store expertise.
The parity in costs between the 2 channels and the elevated push by offline merchants urging manufacturers to not differentiate between the 2 channels have additionally helped result in this modification, analysts observe.
Right this moment, there appears to be no actual robust incentive to purchase on-line by way of costs, and the e-retail platforms too haven’t been capable of get advantages out of higher product positioning,” Faisal Kawoosa, chief analyst, Techarch, mentioned. “Earlier, solely Samsung had actually deep offline footprints within the nation, however in the present day virtually all major manufacturers are current no less than over 50,000 contact factors even serving tier 2 and tier 3,” he added.
Prachir Singh, Senior Analysis Analyst at Counterpoint Analysis notes that the sooner increase of on-line section coincided with the pandemic when shoppers have been pressured to purchase digitally and in the present day the premiumisation of the smartphone business helps extra exercise within the offline retail. “General, we don’t see the web share going under 35-40 per cent in relation to smartphones,” he mentioned.
Printed on July 9, 2025
